NASDAQ OMX Group Reviews

Former Employee – worked at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fast paced, sharp colleagues. Mission-critical work and visibility in the industry. Worldwide leader and great strategic charter from CEO.

Cons – Politics, fear of CEO from most managers. IT group did not face suitable and justified accountability after the Facebook fiasco.

Advice to Senior Management – Examine if the sr managers you hire can take a very top-down organization. If not, don't hire them, because this is one company the CEO runs the show and his word/fingerprints are on everything.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group

Pros – Ability to make a lot of money.

Cons – Lots of turnover in the employee base as well as constant change.

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – Our team is really making a difference.

Cons – Sometimes there's weird office politics.

Advice to Senior Management – There are too many people is one office. Get more space!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – My colleagues were great to work with.

Cons – Unfortunately NASDAQ was the worst company I have ever worked for. It starts at the top and ends with the local sales management (specifically in Chicago). They say you're only as strong as your weakest link and it's quite imperative that the sales managers are destroying what could be a great place to work for.

Advice to Senior Management – Just because you're NASDAQ doesn't mean your solutions are ready for the market place. If you want to be competitive, invest in product development and the appropriate resources to support those products. Also, it's 2013 and scare tactics to your employees don't work in this day and age. It only isolates you and make people not want to work for your organization.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Opportunities to contribute to interesting projects.

Peers, teams & coworkers that range from average to excellent in skill & personality.

Compensation
- Consists of a base salary with a 5,10,15,20,40% yearly bonus depending on one's position (e.g. associate, professional, senior, director, vp, etc)
- ESPP is available in 6 month intervals at a 15% discount
- Healthcare kicks in immediately rather than after some period (90 day)
- RSUs are granted yearly and vest after 4 years.
- 4% 401k match w/ Vanguard

Cons – As with any large organization, it suffers similar challenges.

- Plenty of turnover and organizational restructuring. Each year titles are renamed, groups are volleyed back and forth between senior managers in the name of "growth" "efficiency" "synergy"

This leads to an unfortunate loss of direction each time a reorganization/management shift occurs in the technology organization. Despite these shifts, the groups and the organizational process/workflow/structure have remained relatively unchanged. The same groups talk to each other to get the same work accomplished. Rather than the Greens talking to the Yellows, it simply shifts to the Oranges talking to the Browns in title only.

It is very similar to the observation that mergers fail due to organizational processes not meshing together.

- A technology company severely incapacitated by the recent corporate culture of defendable decisions since the technology issues of the largest IPO. e.g. "No one ever got fired for hiring IBM."

This has mainly led to the culture comprised of skilled, agile teams, capable of building solutions, to incapable teams that have lost their top talent to turnover. The policies put forth make for a severely demoralizing & demotivating a workforce that's otherwise tremendously capable.

This makes for a fairly oppressive work environment and a structure that engenders mistrust. A small bit of sanity comes from the small alliances that are forged amongst the Romeos & Juliets of groups at odds with each other.

- Senior management is severely disconnected from the ground floor workers as they are incapable of dog-fooding the products & policies they put forth. As many know, an idea does not sell itself, but the hard work and attention to detail make the difference. By pushing policies in the name of leaving a legacy, resume bullet point, or being a yes-man, relationships & respect are broken.

- ADHD inducing distractions. Being an open setup, there's a tremendous lack of ability to focus on a task at hand.

Advice to Senior Management – Bob G asks at group lunches, "What can we do to improve our company?"
When most of the employees are speechless, it's not that there aren't any improvements to make, it's that they are paralyzed from speaking as they don't know where to begin.

- Our salaries reflect that we are a knowledge workforce rather than a labor workforce. The most important competitive advantage of a knowledge workforce is the cultivation and management of that knowledge & critical thinking base. Top talented engineers make great team leads, however are very unlikely to be good managers.

- Stop reorganizing the company. History has shown that war has not been a struggle over territory as much as the battle for a shift in power. As different heads continue to battle for territory, it's a reflection of individuals shifting their priorities from EXCELLENCE to SELF-PRESERVATION. As management's focus shifts to self-preservation, competitive edge is lost as top talent decides that their sanity is more important than the compensation package.

- Focus on building & forging employee relationships rather than relying on top-down edicts of how employees should work. Build a collaborative environment where minds can mesh. Google about the design of the Bell Labs Hallway.

When it comes to fixing problems, there are 2 types of consultants. Ones that are looking to bill you for putting on a show, and ones that understand that the individuals best suited to fixing an organization are the individuals within it. The latter consultant merely facilitates the process of finding the individuals capable of a finding a fix and facilitating that fix.

- Invest in infrastructure and building environments capable of being tested during work hours rather than during the weekends. A burned out employee is incapable of contributing to the knowledge base of the organization as a whole.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good co-workers who will help you in a pinch.

Cons – Most managers clueless and should not have their jobs, just look at what happened with the Facebook IPO. Most of what you learn is by yourself or from a co-worker. No help from Management. Low pay, long hours and micromanagement.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to rank and file employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at NASDAQ OMX Group

Pros – Good benefits, laid back work environment

Cons – Current management is not equipped to handle the challenges facing the market and technology group

Advice to Senior Management – Step aside and let the younger folks start running the company

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Decent salary, easy commute, opportunity to experience different roles

Cons – Scare tactics used by management, not a lot of motivation or training provided, seen many people fired on the spot even after reaching their targets, acquire companies, but dont know how to integrate them successfully

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time for more than a year

Pros – the office atmosphere was very comfortable, the co-workers were great, work was always flowing, no stress

Cons – budget cuts came and hit all departments, so unfortunately that was the only downside because i was one of the cuts

Advice to Senior Management – take me back is all i can say, i was very happy there

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at NASDAQ OMX Group full-time

Pros – Good company name on resume, use it to get out and find a better company to work for, decent health insurance

Cons – Poor leadership at all levels, over last few years have consistenly piled on more and more work to the little people. Should be hiring due to more and more work coming in,new contracts being won, instead they are laying people off. They are suppose to be a market for technology and their technology is horrid, look at the day of the Facebook IPO and those issues, that was the tip of the iceberg. Regular workers are fed up and just trying to hang on until they can find something better. The GCS division is incredibly low-staffed, if clients only knew their jaws would drop.

Advice to Senior Management – When business is way up in certain areas, and staff are feeling incredibly over-worked, don't ask them to do more with less and lay people off, hire. Take a pay cut like the rest of us

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company